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Monday, June 8, 2015

Chicago Principle

I’m glad I heard about the Chicago Principle. What a relief that part of the world is trying
to act civilly and rationally at the same time!What is the Chicago Principle?I’ll get to that in a bit.

Baseball used to be called the national pastime.Sportswriters can debate whether it is still
as popular as it was in the past or has been surpassed by basketball or
football, but there is no doubt that the new national pastime is not a sport at
all.It’s being offended!

You can hardly pick up a newspaper or magazine without
seeing at least one story about someone being offended or someone having to
apologize for “misspoken remarks” or a blog or tweet that rubbed someone the
wrong way.

Of course the reaction to being offended is rarely to calmly
and rationally point out to the other person the error of his ways, to develop
a counter argument or even to assume the other person was innocent, meant no
harm, was hurried and didn’t carefully pick out his words or was
misinformed.No, the typical reaction to
being offended is to lash out angrily, demand an apology, or post the offending action to social media in hopes of it going viral and publicly shaming the
offender, possibly ruining his career or life.(Some comedians now avoid college campuses for fear that an edgy joke
tested on an audience and bombing will be videoed and posted before the
performer has a chance to polish or even drop it from the act.)Often this outrage relates to a topic or
action that in the past most would have let pass, not noticed or considered
quite innocuous.

To gather a few examples I went to Google and searched on
“news” and “offended.” I struck gold!Some high school seniors in Pennsylvania were offended by a letter sent
reminding them to dress appropriately for graduation.It was blunt and the administration
apologized, but explained that it had been written by someone who had retired a
couple of years ago.They probably just
had been sending out the same letter annually without reviewing it to account
for the new level of sensitivity.Next
was a story about a rent-a-bike company in Washington that introduced bicycles
painted glittery in honor of Gay Pride Month.The story questioned whether this was a tribute or rather played into an
offensive stereotype.To reinforce how
careful we must be these days that same story referred to another incident:“Dani Marrero in USA Today went as far as to
say referring to guacamole as "guac" should be avoided. She wrote,
in part, “...the word itself also has significance as it comes from indigenous
Nahuatl language, so please make the effort to pronounce it in its entirety.”(Well, everyone knows you can’t shorten,
abbreviate, misspell or otherwise play fast-and-loose with a word unless it is
in your native language!If somebody
from Pakistan, for example, referred to a hotdog as a “dog” wouldn’t we demand
an apology?)

Then there was a man who was offended by a message on a
lottery ticket, forcing the New York Lottery to apologize for the “unfortunate
arrangement of [random] words on this individual ticket.”He didn’t even win anything after such a
traumatic experience.(Imagine being
insulted by a ticket!)Finally Drake Bell was chastised for a tweet about Caitlyn Jenner that could have been
interpreted as unfavorable.(Do you not
wonder why anyone would care at all about a tweet from a “former Nickelodeon
star”?)

This only got me half way down the first page.Apparently a bishop in Columbia made an
offensive statement, Apple was “deeply offended” by a BBC investigation, Jim
Harbaugh is meeting with offended University of Michigan students, and, not to
be outdone by those American infidels, ISIS issued a statement banning pigeon
breeding as offensive.

Remember, this was just one page of one Google search on
one day.Tomorrow there will be another
long list of victims who must have gone public enough with their offended
feelings for it to be picked up by the media.

This brings me to the Chicago Principle.“The University of Chicago is an institution
fully committed to the creation of knowledge across the spectrum of disciplines
and professions, firm in its belief that a culture of intense inquiry and
informed argument generates lasting ideas, and that the members of its community
have a responsibility both to challenge and to listen.”This means that if the speech or written
statement is legal and not threatening, harassing, defamatory, or a substantial
invasion of privacy, it must be considered, discussed and debated regardless
of whether it may be thought by some to be offensive, unwise, immoral, or
wrong-headed.

This could be a wonderful victory for critical
thinking.Instead of playing the
offended victim and spreading animosity, students are required to come up with
persuasive arguments or counterexamples for any offensive statements.It allows for open debate on even sensitive
subjects or those where public pressure makes the defender of some ideas seem
uncool, uncaring or a pariah.

Fortunately, other universities including Princeton and
Purdue are adopting this principle to ensure that free speech and free
expression are not suppressed by the overly sensitive or self-appointed
censors, and to ensure that the ideas of any group or individual, including
invited guests, reach the campus and are not withheld as opponents of those
ideas organize to bully the administration into submission.When all ideas are discussed, not some swept
under the carpet or withheld for fear of retaliation, learning replaces
indoctrination.Maybe the rest of
American can learn something from that.

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About Me

is highly qualified to comment on the connection between our behavioral choices and the results we get. His formal education and training in observing and classifying behavior is supported by more than 40 years of practical business experience and 10 years of personal research. He is a West Point graduate with two Master’s degrees in business.
He is also a published author, Master Gardener and RYT200 yoga teacher.